This is understandable as it is difficult to simulate the torrent of
comment, information and virtual spam that flows thorough Twitter,
Facebook and so on in many crisis situations. We have found one of the
biggest challenges for the comms team is monitoring this effectively,
identifying the few comments that you can respond to from the many to be
ignored, and being prepared and ready to do so in a timely and effective
manner.

There are many journalists and bloggers who post when they are writing -
or even about to write - on Twitter, allowing you to spot bad press
immediately and intervene quickly. Our experience is that getting to a
key influencer swiftly with helpful material can effectively turn
sentiment.

Simulating this is difficult because you cannot post false comments on
Twitter etc, but when we work with clients we show what they need to
have in place and throw 'fake postings' around to test how they would
react.